Brandon Lloyd makes New England Patriots deep

Rich Garven TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

Published Friday May 25, 2012 at 6:00 am

Despite playing for Denver and St. Louis, two teams that lacked stability at quarterback due to injury and/or ineffectiveness during his stints there last season, Brandon Lloyd still pulled in 70 passes for 966 yards and five touchdowns in 15 games.

That was the encore performance to the career-best line of 77-1,448-11 that the veteran receiver submitted in 2010, a year in which he topped the NFL in receiving yards and tied for fifth with an average of 18.8 yards per reception (minimum 30 catches).

So, when Lloyd hit the free agent market March 13 in the enviable unrestricted category, he shouldn’t have lacked for suitors. And that would have been the case had he not shooed them away by repeatedly professing his desire to play here.

Lloyd did visit with the San Francisco 49ers at his agent’s behest. But he had already made his decision and a day later, on March 17, signed a team-friendly deal with the Patriots for three years and $12 million.

While the money is good, he likely could have gotten more somewhere else — perhaps even from the Patriots by not playing his hand so early.

But this is more about the productive possibilities of performing in an offensive system engineered by coordinator Josh McDaniels and executed by quarterback Tom Brady.

“I just feel like it was effective,” Lloyd, making his first public comments since signing, said of the Patriots’ pass-happy approach following an offseason training activities session yesterday at Gillette Stadium. “It was effective for the way that I run routes and catch the ball.”

Lloyd probably wouldn’t even be here if Chad Ochocinco hadn’t failed at both route-running and ball-catching last season. So, still in need of a deep threat, the Patriots made the 6-foot, 194-pound Lloyd one of their primary targets of the offseason.

There’s a reason to believe they won’t come up short again in their quest to find someone capable of stretching defenses and corralling long balls.

Lloyd had 156 catches in 79 games in his first six seasons. He had 155 catches in 33 games the last three seasons, all with McDaniels as either his head coach (Denver) or offensive coordinator (St. Louis).

“The way the plays are called is very good for the way that I run routes and catch the ball,” Lloyd reiterated.

McDaniels is back for a second stint directing the offense in New England, which is why Lloyd offered a simple “no” when asked if he thought there’d be a problem with mastering the playbook.

“It helps because I’m familiar with the offense,” he said, noting the terminology is pretty much the same as his last two stops. “I’m familiar with the nuances of the offense, so that definitely helps with the transition coming to this team.”

The Patriots are the sixth team for which Lloyd has played since the Illinois alum entered the NFL as a fourth-round pick of the 49ers in 2003. He has encountered a lot of quarterbacks and dealt with a lot of coaches who have their way of doing things.

His early thoughts on Brady and the Patriots?

“That he’s good,” Lloyd said of No. 12. “He’s good from far away, and he’s good up close.”

As for the vaunted Patriots’ Way, Lloyd was impressed with “the coaching, the way that the message is delivered, and the way that the coaches coach and the players all fall in line. It’s been a good experience so far.”

Lloyd joins a position loaded with experience. In addition to retaining Julian Edelman and Ochocinco and re-signing Wes Welker and Deion Branch, the Patriots brought back old hands Jabar Gaffney and Donte’ Stallworth.

While impressed with the talent level of his fellow wideouts, Lloyd wasn’t interested in venturing a guess as to how explosive this group might be. Not with this being May and the opener four months away.

“Only time will tell,” he said. “We still have a lot of work to do. We have a lot of practices ahead of us. We still have a lot of work to do before we can start making any predictions like that.”

The list of those not taking part in the workout, which lasted about two hours, included tight ends Rob Gronkowski and Daniel Fells; offensive linemen Logan Mankins, Sebastian Vollmer and Brian Waters; and receiver Anthony Gonzalez. … Center Dan Koppen, who missed most of last season after suffering an ankle injury in the opener, was out there and pronounced himself fit afterward. But it looks as though he’ll have to work to get his job back as Dan Connolly was slotted as the “first team” center.